“It takes courage to put a stake in the ground, to own who you are and what you believe in."

My latest guest helps his clients speak their counterintuitive truths to the world and when you can own a counterintuitive truth, you really have the ability to put a stake in the ground and people will want to come along and follow.

I had the pleasure of sitting down to interview Rich Litvin, “The Accidental Entrepreneur”, on the Capability Amplifier podcast. Just in case you’re not familiar, Rich is a hugely successful author, he runs a high-level Mastermind group and is a highly sought after business coach who only works with five clients per year and gets $100,000 per client!

Why is Rich "The Accidental Entrepreneur"? Well, because his dad was an entrepreneur, and did his best to persuade his three sons to do anything butbecome an entrepreneur. But it turns out, many years later, guess what all three sons are? Yup, you guessed it — they’re entrepreneurs!

Rich was a high school teacher for 15 years and eventually a Vice Principal because that is his passion: kids, teaching and education. He lost his job in 2005 and began a new career as a coach but he didn't know you were supposed to have a business plan or how to write a business plan, so for the last 14 years his one-line business plan has been: “Meet Fun And Interesting People.”

Pushing your limits

Fast forward to today and Rich is about to publish his second book called When You're The Most Interesting Person in The Room, You're In The Wrong Room. And he has a high-level Mastermind group called 4PC, which stands for the 4% Club. That has two meanings: 4% is the top 20% of the top 20% but also stands for the 4% Rule. Business can sometimes feel like life or death but in actuality, it usually isn't a life or death situation. But if you're the kind of person who jumps off a mountain in a wingsuit, if you're the kind of person who surfs the world's highest waves, you risk dying, yet you want to get better and better every year. The 4% Rule says that the way to get better when you're an extraordinary top performer, and in an arena where you could die is to only push yourself 4% beyond your current capabilities. For most people on the planet that's too far, but for top performers, it's too low. So we push ourselves beyond where we need to go, and we're not getting burnt out or stressed out. It's that 4% arena of top performers that Rich plays in. What's the tiniest shift that can make the biggest impact?

The 3 traps of success

What Rich saw in his own life and working with the very successful clients that he has over the years is that we live in a world where most people are chasing the trappings of success, and so they don't see the traps that are inherent in success. You don't catch them until it's too late because you've already been successful. For Rich, some of the traps were implanted at a really young age for. He spent most of his childhood and a lot of his adulthood, trying to prove himself to my father and he became very successful and very driven. He says that even to this day if he’s not careful, he gets caught. For example; he’ll have success, give himself 25 seconds to celebrate then he’s looking at how he could have done it bigger or better, or he’s looking into the future to see what he could be doing next. Take a look at the Three Traps that Rich continually sees leaders and successful people getting themselves into:

The Isolation Trap: "I'm not lonely, but I feel very alone."

The Imposter Trap: "People admire me, but I feel like a fraud."

The Emptiness Trap: "I have everything I ever wanted, but I feel empty.

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg! During our time together Rich and I delve into some pretty interesting subjects that I know you’ll find a lot of value in. Have a look:

Serving people so powerfully that they never forget your conversation for the rest of their life.

The power of listeningand the willingness to sit in the uncomfortable silence

Serving people vs. pleasing people

The difference between what people say they want vs. what they actually want

"When you're the most interesting person in the room, you're in the wrong room."

What are you tolerating?

What's the legacy you would leave today if it were your last day on earth vs the legacy you’d like to leave?

Starting, buying, or growing your small business shouldn’t be hard. Guidant Financial works to make financing easy for current and aspiring small business owners by providing custom funding solutions, financing education, and more.